The Christmas Books: A Christmas Carol; The Chimes; The Battle of Life; Cricket on the Hearth; The Haunted Man and The Ghost’s Bargain.

DICKENS, Charles.

$17,500.00

Item Number: 135440

London: Chapman and Hall, 1843-48.

Complete set of Charles Dickens’ Christmas Books containing first editions of each volume in the series with the exception of A Christmas Carol. Octavo, five volumes elaborately bound in full crushed red morocco by Sangorski and Sutcliffe with gilt titles and tooling to the spine in six compartments within raised gilt bands, double gilt ruling to the front and rear panels, gilt turn-ins and inner dentelles, all edges gilt, illustrated. The set includes a second edition of A Christmas Carol and first editions of The Chimes, The Battle of Life, Cricket on the Hearth, The Haunted Man and The Ghost’s Bargain. Vignette titles in each volume with the exception of A Christmas Carol. In near fine condition. Housed in a custom marbled slipcase. An attractive example of Dickens’ famed work.

A Christmas Carol "may readily be called the Bible of Christmas It was issued about ten days before Christmas, 1843, and 6000 copies were sold on the first day"(Eckel, 110). "It was a work written at the height of Dickens’ great powers, which would add to his considerable fame, bring a new work to the English language, increase the festivities at Christmastime, and contain his most eloquent protest at the condition of the poor" (John Mortimer). "Suddenly conceived and written within a few weeks, [A Christmas Carol] was the first of Dickens’ Christmas books (a new literary genre thus created incidentally) it was an extraordinary achievement—the one great Christmas myth of modern literature."